Miranda Merron writes this morning What an uninviting place, the doldrums. Not surprising that tourism has never taken off here. The night before last, the squalls had character. Now it's just a vast zone of rain and no wind blocking the route south. Occasionally there's a little breeze just to provide a glimmer of hope. It was in one of these moments, boat heeling slightly with wind in the sails, that I noticed that the boat speed was 1 knot. And so began a lengthy seesion of backing down to get rid of what turned out to be a bit of tarpaulin. I saw it drift past the boat. Luckily the backong down worked because if not I was going to have to go swiming at dawn, something I would prefer not to do.
On the fauna front, one of the squalls brought numerous insects, including two different types of dragonfly and a butterfly. We are some 800 miles from Africa, which is presumably where these creatures originated.
Miranda/ Campagne de France
